Tales from the TARDIS (Nine)
by ArnettV
Summary: Take a look at Sparrow's life between the many exciting and, quite literal, out of this world adventures. From curious moments in the TARDIS, to domestic crises at her London flat, life is never boring traveling with the Doctor. But what happens during those off moments in between? The TARDIS knows all the tales. Series of one-shot stories from my story The Sparrow and the Doctor.


**Hello all! For those of you who are familiar with my other Doctor Who story, _The Sparrow and the Doctor,_ this is a little spin off from that. It is not entirely necessary to read this to understand what is happening in the main story. Although, it you wish to read this without actually reading the main story, you basically just need to know that Sparrow is an OC who was dragged from her universe into the Doctor's by the rift in Cardiff and is now travelling the universe with the Time Lord himself and Rose. In her own universe, Alison Sparrow was a whovian like many of you readers, and brought with her the knowledge of the long running science fiction show, _Doctor Who. _**

**These will just be a series of one-shot stories with no real connection between each chapter. I will try to post them in order of events that actually do occur in the universe, for instance, this story occurs early on as Sparrow still has her American accent. **

**I believe this is just a great way to add more to the story, and also share with you guys the thought, ideas, and ridiculous scenarios that I have concocted, but was unable to include in the main story. Also, who wouldn't want more interaction with the ninth Doctor? I would/do, so it's partially the reason I created this story. **

**Anyway, first chapter is up. These won't come as regularly as the chapters from the main story, but there will be postings here and there. Enjoy!**

****Please note: I do NOT own Doctor Who or any if it's characters and stories.****

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Defying Gravity

Sparrow hummed happily as she walked through the TARDIS' corridors, wearing cutoff denim shorts rolled halfway up her thigh, and a purple sweater with quarter sleeves that shrugged off the edge of her shoulders. Her brown boots clattered against the metal grating of the floor and the Victorian styled watch clinked against her wrist as she swung her arms carefree and wandered into the console room. She was looking around for either of her time traveling companions as company. Sparrow could hear one of them at least and sauntered around the control console in search of the source of the noise.

The Doctor was meddling with some wires underneath the console, detaching green ones, reattaching the red ones, installing flashing blue lights, and plenty of other things Sparrow had no clue what the purpose was.

She waited a few moments, gazing at the Doctor inside the gap in the floor as he didn't seem to notice her yet, hard at work. She forced herself not to giggle and give away her presence as she observed the Doctor bite his tongue between his teeth while he soniced two wires together. It was interesting to watch the Time Lord meddle and tinker with his ship.

Eventually, satisfied that she got to see the many different faces the Doctor made while he worked, Sparrow finally made herself known. "What are you doin'?" her voice was light and soft as she called out in her American accent, but it was still enough to startle the man.

His arms jerked and the two wires in his hands moved along with them, causing whatever metal piece they were attached to, to come lose and land with a solid thud on the Doctor's stomach. Now, Sparrow couldn't help but let her giggle escape at the man's unfortunate accident and he glared at her as he recovered and tried to fit the piece back where it belonged.

"Fixing my ship," the Doctor responded as he forced the piece back and it snapped into place with a solid push from the man, plus a little welding help from the sonic screwdriver to make sure it stayed.

Sparrow's brows stitched together as she glanced up at the Time Rotor. "What's wrong with her?" She didn't see anything the matter with the ship, but then again, what did she really know about the mechanics of a living transdimentional, time traveling spaceship. Not much, the girl had to admit.

The Doctor stopped fiddling with the wires again and looked past them to glare up at Sparrow. While she was more intelligent than the average human it seemed, he still didn't think she could truly understand the inner workings of the TARDIS without asking a thousand questions. Instead of telling the girl off in a rude manner though, he opted to explain in a rather intricate and technical way that he was sure would she wouldn't understand and deter the girl from distracting him further. "I'm rerouting the multifold circuit through the gravity dampener relay to respond to the main circuit's data bank caches."

Sparrow's eyes glazed over for a moment as she was only able to pick out a few choice words. She didn't quite like not knowing what was going on and sometimes much preferred being able to tell what was going to happen next, but snapped her face to a smile any way as she asked hopefully, "Can I help?"

The Doctor scoffed. He had tried being kind, but it didn't seem to get through her head well enough. "Sparrow, I don't think you'll be able to do much to really help me. Why don't you go play with Rose?"

Sparrow frowned as she got the Doctor's message, but reached down into the open grating of the TARDIS and pulled up the end of a red wire. "You know that's not attached to anything, right?" she pointed out, and the Doctor's eyes followed along the red wire in his left hand as it trailed up the under workings of the console and eventually ended in Sparrow's hand, the copper wire ends frayed as they weren't attached to anything.

"I was getting to that!" he declared, slightly embarrassed to be caught in a mistake, and yanked the end of the wire that was in Sparrow's hand away as he tugged on his end.

"Fine," Sparrow exclaimed, obviously able to tell the Doctor wasn't in a social mood. "I'll leave you too it then." She rose to her full height again and spun in her heel as she stalked off from the console room, clearly able to hear the Doctor mumbling behind her as he continued working.

Sparrow wandered around the TARDIS a bit longer as she searched for the blonde who had to be somewhere inside the impossibly large ship. It wasn't until she neared the TARDIS' kitchen that she could hear humming and the sound of ceramic tinkling that Sparrow got a good idea of where the other girl was.

As she rounded the corner into the almost futuristic kitchen, Rose was standing at one of the counters, fixing herself a cup of tea. Sparrow didn't wait and tease the girl as she had done to the Doctor and instead greeted her almost as soon as she walked through the doorway.

"Hi, Rose," she called, happy to see the girl's enthusiastic face, especially since it wasn't criticising her for trying to help.

"Sparrow!" Rose cheered at the sight of her friend. "Care for a cup?" she gestured to the pot of tea in front of her and Sparrow nodded.

"Two sugars please."

Rose smiled in answer and quickly threw together a mug for the other girl. She was wearing her normal outfit, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with trainers, but her hair was half pinned up so that it had beach waves where it fell over her shoulders. Sparrow constantly wondered how the girl was able to do so many different styles with her hair while she herself only knew two; straight, and pulled back.

Finished, Rose set Sparrow's cup of tea down at the table in the middle of the room and moved to sit down herself. Sparrow moved to take a seat across from the girl and sipped at her tea, smiling as it warmed her throat.

"Mmh. Almost as good as your mum's," Sparrow quipped and Rose smiled.

"No one makes tea better than her." She drank from her own cup and then looked over to the girl as she asked, "So what's the Doctor up too?"

Sparrow's smile fell as she thought of the man who had brushed her off just moments ago. "He's off doing something to the TARDIS' data banks," she waved offhandedly, dismissing the thought. "Apparently he doesn't need any help though."

"Ah, that's alright," Rose tried to assure. "Boys get like that. Mickey used to get in these sort of trances when he was working on his car or playing a game. Couldn't get him to pay attention to anything! I think it's just something hard wired in the males of every species."

Sparrow chuckled at the idea. "Must be. Mind you, Mickey tinkers with motor vehicles, the Doctor rewires entire spaceships if he gets the chance."

"Mmh." Rose was about to open her mouth to comment, but suddenly the lights flickered in the room and both girls looked at the ceiling in response. "What was that?" she eventually asked and Sparrow responded unsurely as she continued to look around curiously for the source, but there was nothing.

"I don't know, but I doubt it was anything good."

Then, in response to both of the girl's questions and assumptions, they found themselves feeling very light. So light in fact, that they began drifting into the air without anything supporting them. The table and their mugs began to float up as well and as they looked around, it was plain to see that anything that wasn't bolted to the ground was easily drifting just as the two girls were.

"What's going on? What's happening?" Rose asked worriedly as she struggled to balance herself in the middle of the air and not flip upside down.

Sparrow frowned as she remembered what the Doctor had said when he explained his tinkering with the TARDIS, even if he was only using it as an excuse to get rid of her. "Gravity dampeners."

"Gravity what?" Rose asked as she brushed a fork away from getting caught in her hair.

"The Doctor's mucking about with the TARDIS and now I'm pretty sure he's turned off the gravity," Sparrow explained, pretty confident in her reasoning, but also annoyed they were actually floating around without any support.

"Do you think the entire ship is like this, or just 'round here?"

Sparrow thought for a moment, then grabbed a hold of the edge of a cabinet, pulling and propelling herself towards the doorway to the kitchen. She held onto the doorframe and peered through the top of the opening into the corridor. There weren't many loose items but what stray bits of wire or ship were lying about were now floating in the hall due to the lack of gravity.

Sparrow turned back to Rose and answered her question. "Unfortunately it looks like the entirety of the ship is like this. Can you make it over here?"

Rose looked around her for something to propel herself forward as the other girl had done earlier and found the wall was close enough that if she reached her legs out, it should send her far enough to make it to Sparrow. The girl kicked behind her, and her foot connected with the wall, shooting her through the air and veering just ahead of where Sparrow was holding onto the doorway.

The redhead reached out and grabbed Rose so she wouldn't bump into the wall and steered her towards an easily docked position just as she was. "Come on," Sparrow urged. "Let's see if we can find the Doctor and sort out this mess."

Rose nodded in agreement and followed Sparrow as she pulled herself through the doorway and launched herself down the corridor using the gaps in the lights on the wall as support. It was surprisingly easy to get used to the lack of gravity as the two girl's navigated their way through the corridor and propelled themselves through the TARDIS. They were practically flying as they pulled themselves from the walls, kicked off the floors, or swung feet first from the crooks in the ceiling. It almost felt like twirling around in a body of water, just minus the actual traction that allowed you to move without using something to propel you.

Sparrow could see the opening to the console room as smiled at the relief that they were almost there. With one final push, she swung herself out of the corridor and drifted into the much larger room, eventually catching herself on one of the coral columns that lined the central platform. The lights were dim with only what she assumed were small emergency lights that let off a yellow glow around the metal platform below. She looked around, and the console seemed in disrepair as well with the occasional spark flying out from a control, it made Sparrow wonder how they didn't hear what must have been such a racket. Just like the rest of the TARDIS, there were random objects floating everywhere; wires, spanners, pipes, bits of metal, bolts, but no Doctor.

Rose could see this too as she entered the room and immediately shouted for the man. "Doctor, are you in here? There seems to be a bit of a problem."

In response, the man's voice called from below the metal platform. "I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation, Rose." Sparrow wanted to groan at the pun but her desire to fix things prevented her from doing so as he continued. "The whole place's gone topsy turvy. The neutrorays aren't giving anything, induction nodes aren't responding to the protocol subnet, the navigation's knackered, although nothing new there."

"And the anti-gravity's gone off around the entire ship," Sparrow added as she rounded the cylinder container of the Time Rotor to peer down the gap in the platform the Doctor had been working in before. He pulled himself out from underneath and looked around for the source of the girl's voice.

"Up here," she called and waved down to the Doctor. He looked up with a small smile, then launched himself up to meet the girl. Suddenly, a frown crossed his face as he floated eye level towards Sparrow and her brows furrowed, confused. "What?"

Then he looked away, almost embarrassed as he steadied himself around the Time Rotor. "I probably shouldn't have rejected your help in hindsight," he admitted sheepishly and now Sparrow's brows shot up.

"Excuse me?" But then her mind switched tracks. "No, no. Wait. So you _did_ do this?"

"Not on purpose!" he quickly defended. "Turns out the relay had a much harder time responding than I thought," he mumbled under his breath.

"Can you fix it though," Rose asked. She had pushed her way across the console room just as Sparrow had done as she drifted towards the two at the Time Rotor. Although, she found she was having a much harder time than the other two as she tried to get her aiming right, not being able to get used to the feeling of an anti-gravity TARDIS. She moved with a lot less grace than the Doctor or Sparrow as she fumbled and overshot the top of the Time Rotor and the Doctor had to quickly grab Rose's arm, pulling her to a stable hold on the piece.

The Doctor nodded as the girl settled herself next to Sparrow to face him. "The sonic screwdriver should do it. I can use it to reverse the gravity feed into the TARDIS and everything should be good as normal."

"You mean that screwdriver there?" Sparrow pointed her finger across the console room to a small silver device drifting through the air.

The Doctor quickly patted down his pockets then looked down at his workspace with a frown, realizing that he must've left it below when the gravity shut off and was now going have to chase it around the console room to fix their problem.

"Give me a second." He repositioned himself around the Time Rotor so he was grasping it from behind, his feet planted firmly on the glass cylinder. "Back in a mo."

With a kick off the Time Rotor, the Doctor launched himself across the room towards the sonic screwdriver. He made it look so effortless as he glided through the coral columns and snatched the device out of the air, holding onto one of the structures to stop himself.

The Doctor smile triumphantly and waived the small device back at the two girls. "I got it!" he cheered, and then pushed his way back over to his companions again.

He fiddled with the settings on the sonic screwdriver for a moment and Sparrow couldn't help but ask him how the sonic was going to fix the gravity. "You messed things up on a hardware level, how can the screwdriver possibly fix that? Wouldn't you have to go back into the console and rewire whatever caused this in the-" then she was cut off.

She was so busy questioning the Doctor's method that she didn't notice Rose slowly descending towards the ground, probably a smart choice since the Doctor was just about to turn the gravity back on and as they were a few meters in the air, a fall from that height would most likely hurt. Sparrow could definitely say that with certainty now as mid-sentence her grasp around the Time Rotor wasn't enough and she fell from the top of the control room, down towards the console landing on a series of controls and then tumbling to the floor.

She groaned as she began to recover and felt a sharp pain in the front of her side, but no matter how hurt she was, she still had enough energy and enthusiasm as she shot a glare towards the Doctor standing perfectly straight around the other side of the control console.

"Ugh, a little warning next time," Sparrow growled in aggravation.

The Doctor's face drop to a worried frown as he realize what happened. "Is anything broken?" he asked, and the man seemed genuinely concerned.

Sparrow shook her head as she stood, struggling for a moment to get her feet planted at first, but then quickly rose to her normal height. "I don't think so. It feels like I just landed on a control, or ten."

The man's frown hardened. "I meant on the controls. Did you break anything?"

Sparrow frowned to match his own. "No," she spat in aggravation. "The TARDIS is fine."

The Doctor, having been joking at first but now able tell that Sparrow was upset, turned his attention towards her, nodding at the girl. "Well then, how are you? Are you really fine?" He moved to near towards the girl and try to examine her a bit closer but she pulled farther away, obviously upset with the man.

Despite her actions though, her voice softened as she ran a hand over the right side of her torso. "Yeah I think so; it feels like it might be just a bruise. I don't think there's internal bleeding or anything." She lifted the bottom of her sweater to reveal her stomach and also a large purple-blue welt that was already growing over her right ribs.

The Doctor's brows shot up in concern at the sight of the large bruise and moved forward, despite the girl's actions or ideas of trying to pull away from him again, though this time she didn't object. Sparrow stood there patiently as the Doctor poked and prodded around the area, having to pause whenever the girl would flinch away from his touch only to start over again to get an accurate reading on what might be wrong.

A few seconds later, the Doctor stood with at least some approval as he nodded his head. "Like you said, you're fine. No broken ribs, just a really bad bruise though." He gave the girl's stomach a good slap right over the bruised area and the girl winced, groaning in objection. The Doctor could tell that was probably the wrong thing to do and gave an apologetic face as he mumbled sorry to the girl and called out to Rose. "Are you okay?"

"Yep," she noted with a little cheer. "Not a single scratch. Sorry Sparrow, I thought you would've noticed he was about to fix the gravity or else I would've brought you down with me."

Sparrow mumbled an "s'okay," as she lowered her sweater, careful not to hit the bruise as the Doctor had done. That was enough pain she needed for a day.

"So everything's normal now?" Sparrow ask and then paused considering what had just happened. "Besides the big welts on the side of my body?

The Doctor nodded in answer. "Gravity should be good now, completely normal, not what I wanted it to be, but it's better than no gravity at all."

"Yeah, well, next time you decide to rewire and play with the internal systems of the TARDIS, at least give us a heads up." She began to turn away, grabbing Rose to drag with her but paused, turning back to the man briefly. "And next time, just except the help instead of acting like a macho man."

"Yeah, yeah," the Doctor answered as he waved off her suggestion, though she could tell he really had considered it and next time probably would actually except her help, whenever that would be.

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**Just a little anti-gravity fun to kick off the new story and slight revival of the ninth Doctor. It'll be fun to write him again.**

**Let me know what you guys think. And if there are any situations you'd love to see these guys in, this is the story to have it done.**

**Love!**


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